Are we being far too generous to England players?

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I prob wouldn't dare post this on my FB but despite them being lauded as heroes by the press does anyone else think we were a bit......crap?
Don't get me wrong I lost my **** when we won that shoot-out, what a moment, but that game should have been put to bed an hour earlier.
Also Southgate's squad rotation was non existent and it showed as players were knackered after an hour of croatia.
This team convincingly beat Panama and noone else.
Had teams not decided to gift us penalties we could well have been out at the group stage, pushed our luck in the last 16 and a GK performance made the Sweden game look more comfortable than it was.
Which of the 6 performances am I supposed to be proud of exactly?

Am I being overly cynical? I thought some of our players were awful to be honest

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Apart from the second half of the Croatia game I thought England played good football and all played well. I do think Sterling had a good tournament despite not scoring. They looked like a team and re the Sweden game they made Sweden look ordinary. We got beaten in the semi final. There is a reason Croatia are there. I thought we could beat Croatia but on reflection I thought the best team one. Lets be pleased that England have done well. Kane probably golden boot winner and Trippier should be in the team of the tournament along with one of the back 3.

Maybe I'm foolish, maybe I'm blind!

I prob wouldn't dare post this on my FB but despite them being lauded as heroes by the press does anyone else think we were a bit......crap?
Don't get me wrong I lost my **** when we won that shoot-out, what a moment, but that game should have been put to bed an hour earlier.
Also Southgate's squad rotation was non existent and it showed as players were knackered after an hour of croatia.
This team convincingly beat Panama and noone else.
Had teams not decided to gift us penalties we could well have been out at the group stage, pushed our luck in the last 16 and a GK performance made the Sweden game look more comfortable than it was.
Which of the 6 performances am I supposed to be proud of exactly?

Am I being overly cynical? I thought some of our players were awful to be honest

Lighting the darkest hour

I'll Decide ...

I prob wouldn't dare post this on my FB but despite them being lauded as heroes by the press does anyone else think we were a bit......crap?
Don't get me wrong I lost my **** when we won that shoot-out, what a moment, but that game should have been put to bed an hour earlier.
Also Southgate's squad rotation was non existent and it showed as players were knackered after an hour of croatia.
This team convincingly beat Panama and noone else.
Had teams not decided to gift us penalties we could well have been out at the group stage, pushed our luck in the last 16 and a GK performance made the Sweden game look more comfortable than it was.
Which of the 6 performances am I supposed to be proud of exactly?

Am I being overly cynical? I thought some of our players were awful to be honest

I'd tend to agree.
Here's the extract of something I posted on a different forum (not FB either I hasten to add!! )

All this "England did well" rubbish is part of the problem with our national team's mentality.

England did not "do well".

They failed (once again) to reach the final.

If Belgium beat us (again) on Saturday, we will return home having played 7, won 3 drawn 1 and lost 3. Hardly success in my book.

A last minute winner against Tunisia (who?) and hammering a poor Panama team got us to a second round match against Columbia which we still couldn't win in 90 mins. A reasonably comfortable win against a very average Sweden side sees us into the semi final and suddenly "It's coming home"

Yeah right!! Up steps Croatia, a half decent team who clearly had to balls and the will to win more than England after half time. Shades of Iceland 2 years ago ...

I have little doubt that Gareth's team will be greeted by lined streets of cheering acolytes when they return - all applauding failure. That's what I can't abide.

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I prob wouldn't dare post this on my FB but despite them being lauded as heroes by the press does anyone else think we were a bit......crap?
Don't get me wrong I lost my **** when we won that shoot-out, what a moment, but that game should have been put to bed an hour earlier.
Also Southgate's squad rotation was non existent and it showed as players were knackered after an hour of croatia.
This team convincingly beat Panama and noone else.
Had teams not decided to gift us penalties we could well have been out at the group stage, pushed our luck in the last 16 and a GK performance made the Sweden game look more comfortable than it was.
Which of the 6 performances am I supposed to be proud of exactly?

Am I being overly cynical? I thought some of our players were awful to be honest

I make u spot on, also didn’t we have a total of six shots on target in open play all tournament?

The one thing I will say though is it just shows if u get lucky with the draw & who you play plus ride your luck in games you can go a long way, so on the flip side you can’t blame England for the path that layed before them & who they played.

But I totally agree I’m not wrapped up in this hype that it’s a new era etc we looked bang average at times & we failed to get past the first half organised side we came up against.

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Well if we 'failed' then god only knows how one might describe the performances of Italy, Holland (not even there), Argentina (lost 3 nil versus Croatia), Germany (out in group stages), Brazil (lost to a team who lost to a team who are in the final) etc etc etc.

Maybe I'm foolish, maybe I'm blind!

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I've mixed thoughts in England's performance in this tournament. Reaching the semi final is beyond the stage England typically reach at the World Cup so that is rightly celebrated. On the other side, with so many of the usual 'big teams' either failing to qualify or performing poorly this was the most open World Cup I remember. In future I think we'll look back on 2018 as an opportunity missed.

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I prob wouldn't dare post this on my FB but despite them being lauded as heroes by the press does anyone else think we were a bit......crap?
Don't get me wrong I lost my **** when we won that shoot-out, what a moment, but that game should have been put to bed an hour earlier.
Also Southgate's squad rotation was non existent and it showed as players were knackered after an hour of croatia.
This team convincingly beat Panama and noone else.
Had teams not decided to gift us penalties we could well have been out at the group stage, pushed our luck in the last 16 and a GK performance made the Sweden game look more comfortable than it was.
Which of the 6 performances am I supposed to be proud of exactly?

Am I being overly cynical? I thought some of our players were awful to be honest

But so much was poor. No range of passing (Hendo?), poor ball retention in midfield, fleeting glimpses from the young attacking mids but slim pickings.

Overall bang average. We had a group bye and the easiest path imaginable to the wc final. We nearly drew with a champo Tunisia, managed to lose against Belgium reserves (easily the best result!) failed to dominate hamstrung Columbia, beat a woeful Sweden and were sterile against an unconvincing Croatia.

The tournament as a whole was lacking, missing the great football of 82, 86, 94... plus we had the utter nause of reinventing refereeing with selective application of technology and seemingly revisions to laws about sanctions.

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England 18/1 at the outset, winners at that price are hard to come by
28/1 Croatia
Colombia 50/1 Sweden 80/1
Tunisia were massive and Panama were rank outsiders
So aside from losing in the meaningless friendly against Belgium, we only played supposedly inferior teams, failing to beat two of them in normal time. I think Croatia were slightly inferior on paper. If Belgium had been as limp as us in the group game, they'd have been cast iron finalists. So we could argue, England did very little, yet there's talk of Knighthoods and so on...
There were however, some excellent individual contributions, but a total absence of rotation left some players looking drained with the opposition knowing exactly what to expect from us at every moment. The best thing to come out of it, was to get that penalty shoot-out monkey off our backs. I like Southgate, but his adversity to taking any risks whatsoever will always produce predictable outcomes

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We were lifeless in Brazil 14, got embarrassed by Germany in 2010, embarrassed by Iceland at the Euros in 16.

Pickford was playing from the back. Stones, Walker and Maguire were big highlights for me. The way Maguire was carrying the ball out was good, Stones's passing from the back was top quality. Walker has his limitations as a centre back but I thought he was good. Trippier was good. Young was steady but thought Rose or Bertrand would have been better. Henderson surprised me, he was really good I thought. Kane was good in parts and others was a little isolated but still got a very good amount of goals regardless of how they came. Lingard, Ali and Sterling disappointed me a little but thought they all had their moments, but all lacked quality and composure in the final third. Southgate played the game right and his management style and off-field stuff was great, but thought his subs weren't very good i.e Dier every time and Rashford/Vardy. Those three were frustrating for me every-time they came on.

I thought we finally bought the Premier League tempo and intensity to the international stage with our pressing and work-rate. I think England had a high distance covered and sprint score. Gone was the slow boring passes from the defence into Lampard/Gerrard. Stones was really popping it about and finding the likes of Sterling, Lingard and Alli. I think we were just missing a bit of experience and a different sort of player in midfield...there's not much guile and patience with the likes of Sterling, Lingard and Alli. We needed someone else like an Ozil, Eriksen, Fabregas/Silva type of player.

In all though, it's a good tournament, we could have done better had the fine margins gone our way vs Croatia, but I certainly wouldn't moan or say we were poor. We did more than compete at this tournament and actually had a very good chance of winning which is more than what we've done in recent years. Regardless of the way we got there, whilst it's nothing celebrate, getting to the semi's is a very good tournament.